Los Angeles (AFP) - A social media campaign launched by three US activists to denounce the stigma surrounding abortion has gone viral as women have shared their experiences, though pro-life campaigners have hit back. The hashtag "#ShoutYourAbortion" was started on Twitter over the weekend after the US House of Representatives voted to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest women's health care ser vices provider, as Republicans pushed for a probe of the organization. Lindy West, Amelia Bonow and Kimberly Morrison said they began the campaign in a bid to encourage women to reclaim the conversation about abortion. Bonow...

A spokesman for Iran’s atomic agency announced Monday that Iranian scientists collected environmental samples from a military site without international inspectors present, a move sure to evoke anger from opponents of the Iran nuclear deal who charge it with having lax inspection provisions. {Snip} The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that the Iranian self-verification activities at Parchin were “conducted in a manner consistent with our standard safeguards practices.” “The agency can confirm the integrity of the sampling process and the authenticity of the samples, which were taken at places of interest to the Agency at the...

Italy's migration crisis took on a deadly new twist Thursday as police in Sicily reported that Muslim migrants had thrown 12 Christians overboard during a recent crossing from Libya, and an aid group said another 41 were feared drowned in a separate incident. Palermo police said they had detained 15 people suspected in the high seas assault, which they learned of while interviewing tearful survivors from Nigeria and Ghana who had arrived in Palermo Wednesday morning after being rescued at sea by the ship Ellensborg. The 15 were accused of multiple homicide aggravated by religious hatred, police said in a...

First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet. He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast. Now he's coming for Israel. {snip} Whatever form the punishment takes, it will aim...

A Saudi cleric is garnering headlines for declaring that the sun revolves around the Earth, a clear rejection of all scientific evidence. {snip} The controversial cleric, Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari, was caught making the comments in a short video clip posted to YouTube on Monday. In response to a question posed by a student, al-Khaibari says the Earth is “stationary and does not move.” While al-Khaibari’s remarks have been mocked on social networking sites such as Twitter, regional experts say his anti-science stance is embraced and promoted by leading Saudi clerics in charge of the country’s religious authority. “It makes perfect...

Even as “American Sniper” breaks January box-office records and revels in six Oscar nominations, criticism over the subject of the film, sharpshooter Chris Kyle, is rising and reaching into the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences, which votes on the Academy Awards. Over the weekend, multiple Academy members told TheWrap that they had been passing around a recent article by Dennis Jett in The New Republic that attacks the film for making a hero out of Kyle, who said: “The enemy are savages and despicably evil,” and his “only regret is that I didn’t kill more.” Kyle made...

A coalition that has played a large role in organizing protests since the police killing of Michael Brown is asking the St. Louis County Prosecutor for 48-hour advance notice before announcing whether Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson will be charged. {snip} The coalition also announced plans Wednesday to set up so-called “sanctuaries” in nearby churches where protesters can retreat during potential unrest.

On April 18, the President claimed "this thing is working", that "it’s well past time to move on as a country and refocus our energy on the issues that the American people are most concerned about" and that "the repeal debate is and should be over". Is the victory lap a bit premature?

The United States is quietly expanding the number of intelligence officers in Iraq and holding urgent meetings in Washington and Baghdad to find ways to counter growing violence by Islamic militants, U.S. government sources said. {snip} The meetings underscore how Iraq's instability is posing a new foreign policy challenge for President Barack Obama, who celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. troops more than two years ago. Despite the concern, officials said it remains unclear whether Obama will commit significant new resources to the conflict.

It was a miracle the ragtag, underfed and underfunded Revolutionary Army could beat Great Britain, the strongest military power on Earth. And it was a miracle that a fragile democracy, the only one of its kind in the world, would go on to become the greatest military and economic force the world has ever known. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said, however, there is a simple explanation. Americans didnÂ’t make a king our sovereign. We didnÂ’t make government our sovereign. We made God our sovereign. WND asked Bachmann to explain why the founders believed God blessed America, because she is hosting...

How does a jobless father of four keep his family warm and fed in Detroit during the harsh winter? By donating his plasma and collecting wood from the abundant amount abandoned homes around the bankrupt city.

A majority of Americans want their country to "mind its own business internationally" (51%). While it's doing that, however, it should make sure that the US remains the world's only military superpower (56%) and has more involvement in the global economy (77%). {snip} In addition, Americans don't have a very rosy view of their place in the globe. A majority view China as the world's most powerful economy (the US still is), and only 17% of respondents said that US global importance and power had increased over the last decade. "Less powerful, less important, less respected - that's how a...

<p>MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin called Wednesday for the revival of a Soviet-era physical evaluation program that required all schoolchildren to pass fitness tests.</p>
<p>Putin, a judo enthusiast and a regular swimmer, said that the restoration of GTO, the Russian acronym for Ready for Labor and Defense, would teach children "to stand up for themselves, their family and, in the final run, the Fatherland."</p>

The Joint Committee on Taxation recently released a 96 page report on the tax provisions associated with Affordable Care Act. The report describes the 21 tax increases included in Obamacare, totaling $1.058 trillion – a steep increase from initial assessment, according to the Tax Prof Blog. The summer 2012 estimate is nearly twice the $569 billion estimate produced at the time of the passage of the law in March 2010.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the Democratic Party’s leadership in the House of Representatives, suggested to Jason Mattera at a Feb. 13 women’s rights rally that plans for an assault weapons ban and private-sales background checks were only the beginning of a broader gun control agenda extending to handguns as well. {snip} “We want everything on the table,” Schakowsky told Mattera. “This is a moment of opportunity. There’s no question about it.” One poignant exchange was as follows: Schakowsky: We’re on a roll now, and I think we’ve got to take the--you know, we’re gonna push as hard...

NORTH Korea led by tyrant Kim Jong-un has sensationally vowed to launch a NUCLEAR attack on the USA. The provocative statement comes weeks after the country conducted underground nuclear tests which caused a massive earthquake. America’s west coast cities on Los Angeles and San Francisco are feared to be in Kim’s sights. A foreign ministry spokesman said: "Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to pre-emptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest." However experts doubt the country's ability to produce a...

A team of neurologists found that sexual activity can lead to “partial or complete relief” of head pain in some migraines. The study, from the University of Munster, Germany, suggests that instead of using a sore head as an excuse to refuse sex, making love can be more effective than taking painkillers. Their research, reported in Cephalalgia, the journal of the International Headache Society, found that more than half of migraine sufferers who had sex during an episode experienced an improvement in symptoms. One in five patients left without any pain at all, while others, in particular male sufferers “even...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Much like their human owners, animals have to deal with unwanted weight, too. KCAL9’s Sibila Vargas reported that animal obesity is an epidemic across the country with more than 50 percent of pets now overweight. Natasha, who owns an adorable dog named Colonel, said she knows her furry friend has overindulged in food. “Every time he goes up the stairs, he expects a treat. You spoil them and then you don’t realize what you’re doing,” she said. For the past few months, Natasha has been working with Dr. Jeff Werber, a Los Angeles veterinarian, to help...

Some gun manufacturers say they will no longer sell their firearms to New York law enforcement agencies after the state passed a broad assault-weapons ban last month. At least five companies have said they won’t sell to New York police since Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Safe Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act in January. The bill, known as the NY SAFE Act, included a ban on any semi-automatic rifles or shotguns with “military-style” features, such as a pistol grip or a folding stock.

An official with the Federal Aviation Administration reassured the public Wednesday that no armed drones will be permitted in U.S. airspace, but he acknowledged the agency can do little about privacy fears associated with the unmanned craft.

The pundits continue to opine upon last night's debate, the Romney supporters continue to bask, and the 0bama minions continue to spin - some of them out of control. But with all of the rhetoric, there are two things I haven't seen or heard addressed.

Few if any of his predecessors took the oath of office with higher public hopes for his success than President Obama on Jan. 20, 2009. Millions of Americans hailed his election as an end to partisanship, a renewal of the spirit of compromise and a reinvigoration of the nation's highest ideals at home and abroad. Above all, as America's first black chief executive, Obama symbolized the healing of long-festering wounds that were the terrible national legacy of slavery, the Reconstruction Era and Jim Crow. We would be, finally, one nation. But after nearly four years in office, Obama has become...

On May 16 last year, a 22-year-old Austrian named Maqsood Lodin was being questioned by police in Berlin. He had recently returned from Pakistan via Budapest, Hungary, and then traveled overland to Germany. His interrogators were surprised to find that hidden in his underpants were a digital storage device and memory cards. Buried inside them was a pornographic video called "Kick Ass" -- and a file marked "Sexy Tanja." Several weeks later, after laborious efforts to crack a password and software to make the file almost invisible, German investigators discovered encoded inside the actual video a treasure trove of intelligence...

The Obama administration on Tuesday said it was preparing to sue Arizona county sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department for violating civil rights laws by improperly targeting Latinos in a bid to crack down on illegal immigrants. The sheriff's high-profile crackdown on illegal immigrants has helped thrust the issue onto the national political stage with some states passing tough new laws aimed at pushing out those in the country illegally. The administration's Justice Department and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have been in settlement talks for months over allegations that officers regularly made unlawful stops and arrests of Latinos, used...

Research reveals primary school homework offers no real benefit - and only limited results in junior high school. Only senior students in Years 11 and 12 benefit from after-school work, associate professor Richard Walker said. "What the research shows is that, in countries where they spend more time on homework, the achievement results are lower," Dr Walker, from Sydney University's Education Faculty, said. "The amount of homework is a really critical issue for kids. If they are overloaded they are not going to be happy and not going to enjoy it. There are other things kids want to do that...

Current theories of the causes and impact of global warming have been thrown into question by a new study which shows that during medieval times the whole of the planet heated up. It then cooled down naturally and there was even a 'mini ice age'. A team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University in New York state, has found that contrary to the ‘consensus’, the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago wasn’t just confined to Europe. In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica – which means that the Earth has...

A local bookstore has “sold out” of a controversial marriage guide that advises Muslim men on how to beat their wives. {snip} Page 45 contains the rights of the husband, which include his wife’s inability to leave “his house without his permission,” and that his wife must “fulfil his desires” and “not allow herself to be untidy ... but should beautify herself for him ... ” In terms of physical punishment, the book advises that a husband may scold her, “beat by hand or stick,” withhold money from her or “pull (her) by the ears,” but should “refrain from beating...

At least 90 Iraqi teenagers with "emo" appearances have been stoned to death by religious extremists in Baghdad in the past month after an inflammatory interior ministry statement dubbed it "devil worshiping", activists said. Iraq's Moral Police released a chilling statement on the interior ministry's website condemning the "emo phenomenon" among Iraqi youth, disturbingly declaring its intent to "eliminate" the trend. "The 'Emo phenomenon' or devil worshiping is being followed by the Moral Police who have the approval to eliminate [the phenomenon] as soon as possible since it's detrimentally affecting the society and becoming a danger," the statement read. {snip}...

TOKYO (Newscore) - Japanese researchers have invented a speech-jamming gadget that painlessly forces people into silence. Kazutaka Kurihara of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tsukada of Ochanomizu University, developed a portable "SpeechJammer" gun that can silence people more than 30 meters away. The device works by recording its target's speech then firing their words back at them with a 0.2-second delay, which affects the brain's cognitive processes and causes speakers to stutter before silencing them completely. Describing the device in their research paper, Kurihara and Tsukada wrote, "In general, human speech is jammed by...

{snip} Janet Daley wrote a blistering column for The Daily Telegraph over the weekend entitled “Barack Obama is trying to make the US a more socialist state.” In the piece, Daley writes that the days of the world looking to the United States for leadership are over: {snip} Listening to the President’s State of the Union message last week was like a surreal visit to our own recent past: there were, almost word for word, all those interminable Gordon Brown Budgets that preached ‘fairness’ while listing endless new ways in which central government would intervene in every form of economic...

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. {snip} Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997. {snip} ‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the...

When President Obama denied a permit for the $7 billion Keystone pipeline project stretching from Canada to Texas, many feared the project was dead – but a Republican lawmaker is preparing to bypass the president altogether and get the pipeline back on track. H.R. 3548, submitted by Lee Terry, R-Neb., would take the decision out of Obama’s hands and order the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, to issue a permit within 30 days. Some say the decision never belonged to the president anyway. {snip} Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., also spoke at the Jan. 25 hearing and explained that the...

A SoCal woman says the energy efficient window installed in a neighbor’s condominium is melting the plastic components on cars parked in her carport. Heather Patron of Studio City was dealing with a mystery regarding her Toyota Prius. “The side view mirrors were melting,” says Patron. “Anything that was plastic on the car was melting.” {snip} Patron is not alone. Reports across the country have alleged damages brought on by concentrated sunlight reflected off of energy efficient windows.